My back is doing really well thanks . What i would like to know for my stories is a guy double crosses some drug barons /mafia bosses , they decide to Kill him and then dispose of him in a bath full of Lye. I have heard about this substance ,what will it do to guy in the picture placed in the bath with it ,Look forward to your reply , many thanks in advance.

Well, you certainly come up with some interesting scenarios. The funeral industry has actually come up with a name for the process: alkaline hydrolysis. Some universities have been using it as a way to dispose of the remains of cadavers donated to science. That process is a little more complicated because it also uses high pressure, as well as lye and heat. You can read more about its history and other details here:

Now for your scenario. After killing the guy in the drug deal gone bad, we'll assume the perpetrators have a huge vat they can heat to 300 degrees.They throw the body in. Within a few seconds, the skin turns a yellowish color. Within a minute, the skin, clothing and hair have dissolved. Because human ligaments, muscles, etc. are thicker and stronger than those in a chicken's foot, it will take longer to dissolve them, but within an hour and half, all we'd see floating in that vat is a skeleton. After another 90 minutes, nothing human would be identifiable. There would be a thick, oily tan liquid, and some powder resembling ash in the vat. This entire process would take 3 hours. As for anyone knowing what happened, investigators familiar with alkaline hydrolysis would know something thatw as once alive been dissolved in the vat, but they'd need a lot more evidence to gain any convictions. I must say, a pretty grisly, but effective, way to dispose of a body.

Lye is sodium hydroxide, a very strong base (alkaline chemical). Yes, lye is used to make cleaning products, but straight lye is extremely corrosive and can even damage metal. Lye strong enough to dissolve a body is also strong enough to dissolve clothing. You can confirm this here - scroll down tot he section on sodium hydroxide):

Lye used in bleaches and other cleaning products is chemically changed into Sodium Hypochlorite, which bleaches but doesn't destroy. As a student in college chemistry classes, I learned that if we got sodium hydroxide on our clothes we had to throughly rinse it quickly if we didn't want a hole to develop.

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